[SG] more ww2

G'day,

Just to ask the obvious.... the effects of grenades of ww2 were as strong
compared to bolt action rifles of the time as modern grenades are compared to
assault rifles (in other words I don't have to correct for alternative
strengths) right?

Thanks

> --- Beth.Fulton@csiro.au wrote:

Wrong! The bolt action rifle was MORE powerful than
the assault rifle.   The assault rifle was created
using a round with less powder, even if it was the same
caliber as the standard bolt action rifle.   Modern
grenades tend to have more explosive power in a smaller container.

Modern battle rifles have the features of the assault rifle, I.E. auto fire,
select fire as in SLR, L1A1, G3,
M14.   The AK-47 is a true assault rifle using a
reduced power cartridge.

Bye for now,

G'day,

> Wrong! The bolt action rifle was MORE powerful

So if I understand you correctly...

modern grenades > strength than ww2 grenades ww2 rifles > strength (but less
bullets per shot) than modern rifles

so on balance I don't have to adjust anything to account for different
strength grenades being lobbed by hand as it all sort of comes out in the
wash?

John,

I think that Beth means in a more vague "Impact on the battle" sense rather
than a physics sense.

Sadly I have no idea, but I think that the fact that they weren't fired from
an underslung GL, but either thrown, or plaved on the end of the barrel to
fire would let them come out in the wash. Though it might be worth allowing a
limited number of increased strength volleys (maybe taking to actions) or
something to represent rifle grenades. But that's just a thought.

Richard

> Wrong! The bolt action rifle was MORE powerful than

Just to drag this down into a semantical nightmare, hopefully skirting the
issue or ballistics and whatnot:

How do you define "powerful" in order to compare the relative power or rifles
vs. grenades?

Certainly an assault rifle puts more firepower into the hands of a
soldier than a heavier calibre bolt-action...  Unless you're only
looking at the power of a single round fired from each weapon.

Grenades of WWII had less explosive force, and produced fewer fragments than
today's grenades, but the fragments were larger and, according to a dubious
source, able to inflict wounds and larger distances than fragments from
today's grenades (should you happen to be hit by one).

Short version: I don't have an answer, but I can complicate the issue just
fine! *grin*

> On Mon, 2002-07-15 at 00:18, John Leary wrote:

> Certainly an assault rifle puts more firepower into the hands of a

I often wonder about this. Something that caught my eye a few years ago is
that the US Secret Service was discontinuing the use of UZI 9mm SMG's. Yes,
they are small, and can easily put large amounts of lead in the air, but

they also don't have much punch, and in terms of taking down a prospective
assassin, they often fail to do so.

I am not a fan of very small full-auto weapons anyway.  Too hard to
control with accuracy. UZI's are not what I'd choose as a personal defense
weapon.

But don't try to say that an UZI doesn't represent more firepower than a
revolver... which I believe would be a fair parallel of the assault
rifle vs. bolt-action comparison.

To go back to the specifics of UZIs not stopping assasins: (Ignoring the fact
that a less than sane, or martyrdom driven assasin is very hard to prevent
from succeeding for the moment.)

I don't like the selection of the 9mmNATO round as a "manstopper". Actually,
any FMJ or ball round that goes at supersonic speeds seems like a bad idea to
me. Anything going that fast that isn't designed to "mushroom" or otherwise
tranfer energy to the wound instead of carry it out the other side of the
target is a bad choice IMO. I'm presuming that's what was fired in the UZI's
carried boy our SecretService, right?

IIRC, UZIs are pretty hard during feeding on the nose of cartridges. So
hollow-points or other soft-tip, deforming rounds don't like UZIs.

> On Mon, 2002-07-15 at 11:23, John Sowerby wrote:
Yes,
> they are small, and can easily put large amounts of lead in the air,

> ---

> I don't like the selection of the 9mmNATO round as a "manstopper".

To be honest, I can't remember. It's one of those vague memories dragged up
from the dim dark recesses of my mind....

The short answer is yes you can keep the ratios the same. The game mechanics
should assume that grenades provide intense, short range firepower compared to
rifles.

--Binhan

> -----Original Message-----

> At 1:48 PM +0000 7/15/02, Richard Kirke wrote:

Depends on the weapons that you're talking about.

An Enfield, M1 Garand and a Mauser should all have relatively same impacts as
they are.30 caliber rounds (1) with long big cases and big relatively long
barrels using slower burning powder.

The M1 Garand would have a higher firepower based on it's semi-auto
mechanism vs the enfield and Mauser's bolt action mechanism. The enfield and
the mauser on the other hand could be reloaded mid way through the magazine
where as the M1 Garand had to fire through the
entire en-bloc clip of 8 rounds. Still I think that's probably too
granular.

Give the enfields and mausers a lower firepower than the M1 Garand and the M1
Carbine. Give the M1 Carbines a lower impact than the larger full sized rounds
in the Garand, Mauser and Enfields. The stens and other 9mm based smg's should
have even lower impact values but higher firepower values. The.45 caliber smgs
should be perhaps higher based on the larger round....if you want a difference
between.45 and 9mm.

Additionally, you've got the MGs. The Vickers and the M1919 should
have similar impacts (same as the enfield/M1 Garand actually since
they use the same rounds), with much higher firepower going to the water
cooled Vickers and the M1917 MGs that are water cooled. The M1919 A4 should
still have a lower firepower than the Vickers to account for the lower rate of
fire based on the lack of the water cooled jacket.

The MG42 should have an obscene firepower die with the same impact as the
mauser rifles.

One thing to understand about the high firepower die based MGs is that these
are crew served only. That much large.30 caliber ammo takes a lot of weight
and these guns have some heavy gear to go with
them. The Vickers is the heaviest of the bunch with a 4-5 man team
carrying the gun, the tripod, water and ammo for this weapon. They
aren't used in the assault unless they are pre-emplaced. Putting one
into action should take 2-3 turns. Same for the MG 42 (and Vickers-K)
in the sustained fire role. The M1919 is a bit lighter but not much.

In some respects you could have a given squad of guys that each carry an ammo
counter for the MG in their section or team. By having a vehicle that supports
them you could run a dude or two back and forth to get more ammo. Or detail a
squad of infantry to hoof additional ammo up for that MG for a special attack.

If you have the M1919 or MG42 in the mobile or so called light role, you
should give them a few ammo counters spread among the team members (or the
entire squad) (2) or reduce their firepower. This could make for an
interesting set of rules I think. Having a second barrel counter that gets
used after 3 round of fire at a higher Firepower could also be interesting.
You could also give the Vicker's teams water counters to go with their heavy
load of multiple ammo counters.

An additional aspect of the Vickers is that they could be used for sustained
fire indirect missions on a target just like a mortar. Having this function
available in the game would be important.

The BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle) and the Bren both used the same rounds as
their rifle cousins but were fully automatic and were fed from box magazines
vs integral magazines. They had a higher rate of fire with a correspondingly
heavier ammo load. These could work similar to the heavy MGs with ammo
counters for the team members in those units as well. In the case of the Bren
in a 10 man section of infantry 7 men were riflemen and 3 men handled the
bren. They carried ammo for the bren (6 or more) as did the rest of the rifle
section (2 magazines each). Perhaps giving each man in the section an ammo
counter that they can drop with the bren team would make sense. I don't recall
if the US spread additional BAR mags among a squad or not. These would have
the same impact again as the Garands and Enfields, but higher fire power.

An additional ball of wax is the use of small trench mortars by the British of
a very light and portable role (the 2") vs the larger 60mm and heavier mortars
by the US, British and Germans which were less portable.

Further there's the PIAT, the Bazooka, the Panzerschreck and the panzerfaust.
All had backblast except the PIAT. All were pretty bad as far as accuracy
went. One thing that should be allowed is their use against point targets.
There are more than a few examples of PIAT gunners using their weapons against
German snipers in church towers and other locales for which the large HE
round's were perfectly suited for destroying.

Of course then there's the Boyes and the browning.50. Those will be very high
impact with a lower firepower for the Boyes (but AP capablilty) and higher
Firepower for the.50 Cal MG.

Notes:

1. M1 Garands and M1919's use 30.06 which is hotter than .308/7.62
nato. Enfields, Brens comparable to 30.06. 7mm Mauser is very similar too in
game terms. Do not confuse 30.06 (30 caliber) with the.30 caliber carbine as
that gun fires a smaller bullet (weight, not diameter) with a smaller powder
charge at lower velocity.

2. Look at footage of Germans forming up for an assault. Every one of those
guys moving up seems to have a can of link and his rifle. It seems like they'd
drop the link off with the MG team which is where the squad leader was
situated in German assault units.

I hope this isn't too much info Beth...

> I don't like the selection of the 9mmNATO round as a "manstopper".

I don't know how accurate the Uzi is but given the particular circumstances
when the Service is likely to need them, I'd maybe want something that might
be a little less of the "spray the crowd" type and more of the "target that
one individual in the crowd."

> John Sowerby wrote:

> I don't like the selection of the 9mmNATO round as a "manstopper".

9mm Nato, and as far as I know all pistol ammo save for FN 5,7mm (same as int
the P90) are subsonic.

> Grenades of WWII had less explosive force, and produced fewer

WWII grenades and even some modern ones come in two distinct versions:
offensive and defensive. Offensive grenades consist of a light metal or
plastic casing and were used on the attack (you threw it and then ran
after it, brave guys back then ;-). The defensive ones have thick metal
casing for fragmentation and can only be used while in cover. Some offensive
grenades come with a removable frag sleeve to turn it into a defensive one.
Most modern NATO grenades are designed to be used in both roles which means
they are good at neither. Standard furniture will stop!!! the undersized
fragments of most of these grenades.

> At 11:49 AM -0400 7/15/02, Flak Magnet wrote:

This is flat out wrong. Any round will mushroom given the right set of
circumstances. Those circumstances are the velocity, sectional density, mass
of the bullet, target size, target density, etc.

A large heavy slow bullet will deform and mushroom in a big animal. A larger
flat nosed bullet takes longer to deform than a smaller lighter hollow point.
But it will deform. It is simply a matter of the design of the bullet being
applied to the correct target type.

Small bullets that are traveling at high velocities tend to fragment when they
yaw. A 7mm Remington Magnum at larger speeds is a good example of this. Big
case, moderate sized bullet. Bullet design can enhance or decrease the
fragmentary nature as well as the bullet's tendency to yaw when striking a
target.

The use of hallow points in police/self defensive type applications
assumes the target isn't wearing armor. Additionally, International agreements
(that we abide by, but aren't signatory to) preclude their use in military
applications.

FMJ ammo tends to have less feeding issues than hollow point ammo in certain
firearms. Designers have compensated for the use of either subsonic heavier
loads in their weapons or in the use of different bullet shapes affecting the
cycling or correct feeding of ammo in their weapons. It depends on the weapon
and the designers.

> "laserlight@quixnet.net" wrote:

FWIW, an Uzi "slamfires" or "shoots from an open bolt".

When you pull the trigger the bolt (something like a pound of metal) lurches
forward slamming a cartridge out of the magazine into the end of the barrel
and firing it off in one motion, which
is fine for a spraying-the-crowd type of weapon. This used to be
normal when SMGs were common and had to be really cheap and mass produced.

More modern designs of SMG "shoot from a closed bolt" just like a rifle or
other firearm that is expected to be accurate from the first shot. The classic
example would be the Heckler & Koch MP5, (made famous by the SAS in the
Iranian Embassy siege) which is a shrunken G3 rifle. The bolt has already
closed and loaded the next cartridge when the trigger pull drops a small
hammer or striker onto the firing pin, making for much less lurching. More
complexity, costs more, more specialised market.

Back in their day, Uzi's were really compact and concealable, but
that was, like, the 70's, man. Cra-zy. Are they really only
replacing them now?

> On Mon, 2002-07-15 at 12:56, Ryan M Gill wrote:

I disagree. My statement is accurate. I did not state that FMJ rounds were
somehow impervious to deformation. I've seen them do exactly that (admittedly,
not in flesh, lucky for me). 9mmNATO rounds DO punch through unarmored
personnel more than one would like. Armor, (flak vests, etc.) slow them down
considerably, and are much more likely to
completely stop soft-point or hollow-point rounds.  9mmNATO is good for
military use.  Less so for law-enforcement or home defense.

I'm not advocating that _all_ rounds should be subsonic or hollow
point.  I am saying that a 9mm FMJ round is a less-than-optimal round
for dropping someone (unarmored) FAST when trying to aim center-mass.
Less so when using such a "spray and pray" weapon like an UZI.

> A large heavy slow bullet will deform and mushroom in a big animal. A

Agreed... never thought I disputed that.

> At 2:22 PM -0400 7/15/02, Flak Magnet wrote:

If most everyone in military situations is wearing BA, then how would this
round work in a PDW at all? Or any pistol round? That issue is why PDW's are
now being designed to penetrate personal armor. They are however lacking in
the ability to cause majorly traumatic wounds. One benefit for another in
trade really.

The most critical thing that should be stressed about any round in a defensive
situation is shot placement. A.22 LR will do far better in the chest than a.44
in the thigh. 9mm rounds with a very expandable hollow point bullet can crater
on a target. Another bullet will over penetrate given the same bullet, another
bullet, different target situation, etc. It all depends on how big the target
is and what kind of clothes they are wearing (heavy winter clothes with a
hallow point that gets it's cavity filled by the clothes and fails to expand,
thus over penetrating). A 9mm ball round isn't super good at dropping someone
in a hurry. Any smaller pistol sized round in FMJ is like that. They aren't
creating that much of a wound cavity. Hollow point rounds are better because
they increase the size of the wound cavity.

It's all shot placement.

> I'm not advocating that _all_ rounds should be subsonic or hollow

Open bolt SMGs have their application. Short bursts allow for multiple rounds
in a given zone vs a single round. Controlled use of an SMG has its
advantages.

> > A large heavy slow bullet will deform and mushroom in a big animal.
A
> larger flat nosed bullet takes longer to deform than a smaller

Sorry it looked like you were arguing about round deformation.

Personally, I like having 2 mags of 9mm Winchester Silvertips with 18 rounds
in each mag. That's my normal carry setup. I don't expect to run out, but if I
do, I'm screwed big time. I've thought about.357 Sig, but unless I can get a
gun with >10 magazine capacity, I'm staying with what I have. That alone is
why I don't like the.44 or.45 setup guns. I prefer a double stacked 9mm to a
single stack.45. Simply because I have more rounds on tap and fewer mag
changes for a given session of shooting. Strangely, I'm the reverse when it
comes
to long arms. My home defense rifle is a combination of 7.62 SLR/FN
Fal and a Mossberg 590 Marine (with the bayonet mount!) 12 Gauge with
a 20"bbl with #8 shot up the mag tube, 4 rounds of 2 3/4" slugs on
the speed feed, 2 more 3" slugs on the sling and 8rounds of 00 on the sling.

> On 15-Jul-02 at 15:57, Ryan M Gill (rmgill@mindspring.com) wrote:

> My home defense rifle is a combination of 7.62 SLR/FN

I take it you don't need to be concerned with shooting a neighbor. With close
neighbors I'd drop back to O or even #1.

That's why I liked the Glaser safety slugs. Of course my home defense weapon
currently is a gladius.

> At 4:11 PM -0400 7/15/02, Roger Books wrote:

That's why I've got #8 shot up the mag-tube. The slugs are for
special circumstances in which the #8 isn't working or even worse, when the 00
isn't working. I set that up back when I had a townhouse as a residence.

Now I've got a brick home with real sheet-rock (the kind that needs a
real masonry bit and shrugs off regular screws or nails...not the soft drywall
stuff). The foundation is rubble laid granite if that dates the style of ranch
home.

> That's why I liked the Glaser safety slugs. Of course my home

Hehe...If I need edged, I'll stick the bayonet on the end of the mossberg.
Great room clearing weapon. If they get close, you can poke them. If you want
them to stay on the ground until the cops get there, you can poke them in the
back. Nothing says stay back like a
fixed bayonet.... ;-P

> --- Beth.Fulton@csiro.au wrote:

> On Mon, 2002-07-15 at 15:55, Ryan M Gill wrote:

The context of my comments was in reference to the Secret Service, which is
not a traditionl military situation. Thus the PDW is something I agree with,
but it wasn't something I had brought up.

> The most critical thing that should be stressed about any round in a

You're preaching stridently to the choir on that one. Not that I
mentioned "when trying to aim center-mass".  When considering what round
you want, you'll have to consider where you want to put it.  Center-mass
gets my vote... It's the biggest target, thus the easiest to hit. I'll
leave the head-shots to people with the long-guns, sights and lots of
skill.

> >I'm not advocating that _all_ rounds should be subsonic or hollow

No argument there. But in the setting we're talking about (Secret Service),
select targets may need to be engaged within a crowd, and cost is not really
an obstacle as the number of people to be equipped with SMGs is somewhat
limited, I see MP5s and other SMG overtaking cheaper,
open-bolt, blow-back operated SMG's pretty handily.

+++SNIP+++
> Sorry it looked like you were arguing about round deformation.

*Shrug* I'll get over it. See? I already am!

> Personally, I like having 2 mags of 9mm Winchester Silvertips with 18

Silvertips... those are the Black Talons that didn't get painted black, aren't
they? *grin*

All I can say it, now that I'm out of the service, I really wish I had your
gun collection. Particularly now that you mentioned the fact that your
mossberg has bayonet lugs in a later message! Whoohoo!

G'day,